Venom

by Alan Scholefield

  * * *

  At that moment the radio went in the car and Glaister took it. He listened for some minutes and wrote quickly in his notebook before replacing the receiver then turned to Bulloch. “House belongs to a Frenchman called Blanchet, sir. Owns a chain of hotels in . . .” he consulted his notebook, “. . . Africa and the Far East. The Yard have been on to his number two here, sir, and it seems he’s away.”

  “Where?”

  “Singapore, sir. But should be in Vienna later tonight.”

  “Is there a wife?”

  “Yes, sir. Ruth Blanchet. The office here says they booked her into a hotel in Vienna. Also got her a ticket for a flight that left this afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “Wasn’t sure, sir, but thought about four or five.”

  Bulloch looked at his watch. It showed a little after eight. She’d be there by now.

  “Have they tried her?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s not there. Hotel says that the Vienna airport is fog-bound, sir.”

  “Tell them to keep trying. What about family?”

  “One boy, sir. Wasn’t sure about age but he thought around ten.”

  “Name?”

  Glaister looked at his notebook again. “Philip. Father calls him Philippe. He’s actually the stepfather.”

  “Staff?”

  “There’s a maid, sir. He thinks she’s French, sir. And a chauffeur. English.”

  “That all?”

  “They’ve found something on Nash’s desk, sir. A note. They’re sending it round.”

  A French maid, Bulloch thought. The man who had spoken to him had had a French accent. And a chauffeur, English.

  He heaved himself out of the rear seat into the cold night and fastened the sheepskin more securely around his heavy body.

  “Didn’t he know the names?” he said, leaning towards the front window.

  “Who, sir?” Glaister said.

  “Blanchet’s number two. Didn’t he know the names of the staff?”

  “He didn’t say, sir.”

  “Get them to find out. Wages may have been paid by the firm. Could be on the books.” He turned to Rich. “Keep your eyes open,” he said, and then began to walk back towards the house.

  * * *

  “Move,” Jacmel said, indicating with the gun that Howard should climb the staircase. Dave had the boy now and Jacmel no longer seemed troubled by the shotgun, perhaps he realized it was the one thing that kept Dave from edging over into hysteria, perhaps because conditions had changed.

  “You couldn’t ask anyone to go into those rooms,” Howard said. His mouth was dry and he could feel his skin crawling.

  “We cannot stay here. We must go up,” Jacmel said for the second time. The sitting-room on the first floor had tall windows overlooking the street, giving anyone in the house fire-control over the entire area. But somewhere on the first floor was the snake. Or was it? Perhaps it was down here on the ground floor. No one knew. In the flurry of panic that had surrounded the attack on Louise no one had seen where the snake had taken cover.

  “Look,” Howard said. “This is a mamba; a bloody black mamba. For God’s sake let me take the shotgun.”

  “Ask yourself,” Jacmel said. “How can I give you the shotgun?”

  “Please!”

  “There is no possibility.” Although his voice was low there was a quality of grey granite about his face and eyes.

  “You don’t understand,” Howard said. “They’re like lightning. I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Then we’d know where it is,” Dave said. “That’s something.”

  Howard turned and saw Philip. The boy was looking like a ghost. But Howard was too occupied with his own problem.

  “I understand too well,” Jacmel said. “I see what happened to Louise. Come, you are wasting time.”

  “At least let me take a stick,” Howard said desperately.

  “Move.”

  Howard stepped past Louise’s body over which Jacmel had thrown a coat, and began to climb the stairs. The snake could be anywhere, behind a chair, in a dark corner, under the sofa. There was a fireplace. A display cabinet. The television set. As his mind recalled each piece of furniture, everyday things gathered menace.

  He stopped. He hated himself but could not check the plea. “Couldn’t he come?” he said, pointing to Dave. “Shotgun’s the only weapon against a mamba.”

  “You shut your bloody mouth,” Dave shouted. “You get moving, you hear!” His eyes had widened in fright.

  Howard turned to Jacmel. “What about it?”

  Jacmel’s mouth turned down in distaste and he shook his head.

  “Look,” Howard said, “why don’t we stay down here. We’re pretty sure the damn thing isn’t in that room.” He pointed to the room they had just left.

  Jacmel seemed about to lose his temper but he took a grip on himself and walked up behind Howard. “Move,” he said.

  The sitting-room was dark except for where the light from the landing shone into it. Howard stood at the open door. In front of him was a shadow world, familiar yet unfamiliar, substantial yet insubstantial, a place entered in nightmares. Jacmel stood beside him, then reached through the door and felt for the light switch. The room flooded with light. Howard felt a hand in the small of his back pushing him forward and then he heard the door swish behind him, as Jacmel almost closed it; he was alone in the room. He stood blinking into the light unable to move, waiting for the first blurred movement on the edge of his cone of vision. He was rooted, fixed.

  “You want the boy to be hurt?” Jacmel’s voice sounded like a thunderclap and Howard looked from side to side in terror until he realized he was being foolish, that the snake was deaf.

  “No.”

  “Dave would hurt him.”

  Slowly, as though his legs were made of some heavy inert substance, Howard moved into the room. He had been in it a hundred times yet now he looked at it as though he had never seen it before. It was about twelve metres long and six metres wide. Opposite him were heavily-curtained long windows that opened out over the street and looked to the square beyond. To his right was a Provençal fireplace set with rustic gas-logs.

  On either side of the fireplace were two heavy floor lamps made from glass carboys. The hearthrug was white Himalayan goatskin over a thick gold Wilton carpet. A three-piece suite in brown-and-white tweed was arranged around the fireplace. The remainder of the room was given over to displays of one kind or another; good pieces of Victoriana; an eighteenth- century globe of the world which dominated one corner; a cabinet with a collection of Meissen.

  On either side of the chimney-breast were books bought by the yard from a shop in Pimlico Square: Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Macaulay, Lamb, a set of Grove, the political novels of Trollope, all in their leather bindings, never opened, shadowy. Space there for a long black body that would never be seen until one placed a hand on the shelf. And the curtains. Heavy dark green velvet. Was it there?

  He needed protection, anything; but what? The long-handled brass tongs. Antique. Bought but never used. He moved towards the fireplace. It, too, was dark from old fires. Shadows. Black against black would be invisible. He stepped forward again, this time reaching the sofa. Then suddenly without conscious thought he stamped his foot hard on the floor, sending vibrations around the room, causing the chandeliers to tinkle. Would that make it move? A small movement was all he needed for his bush-trained eyes. Nothing big, God, nothing big. But there was no movement. The room was as still as a vacuum. He leaned towards the sofa and stared at the cushions. Nothing. His hand went out and he picked up the largest and dragged it towards him, holding it to his chest as though it were some valuable artefact.

  Now the tongs, the only things in the room that looked like a weapon. He began to move sideways towards the fireplace. Log basket, billets of pine. Was there anything else? He strained his eyes. The mamba could be deep down amidst the logs, coiled, waiting. The heat in the room was in
tense. He could feel the drip of sweat running down his collar and forming on the inside of his legs.

  The tongs were in his hands and he stepped back violently from the dark fireplace. Surely if it had been there it would have moved. He held the tongs in his right hand, the cushion in his left; the tongs became a sword, the cushion a shield. He stepped into the centre of the room.

  “The corners,” Jacmel said from the door. “Search there.”

  Each piece of furniture was an object of terror. A chair was not a chair but a thing that occupied space and which had underneath it an area of darkness; each table cast a shadow; he went out to each as though to an unknown land, returning always to the centre of the gold carpet for there, like a bull in a ring, he had instinctively made his querencia, his territory, the only place in the room where he felt safe.

  “The corners,” Jacmel said again.

  He searched each corner. The wall cabinet sat flush, there was no place for a snake to hide behind it or underneath it. The globe, on its four legs, cast a deep shadow. Nothing there.

  “The curtains,” Jacmel said.

  The curtains he had kept for last. They hung in their rich dark folds, covering the sides of the windows, bunched, dangerous. Standing as far back as he could, he touched the first with the tongs, making it shake. Nothing. Carefully he lifted the bottom. They were heavy. Too heavy. God, he thought, was it there, wrapped in the velvet. Then he remembered the weights in the hem. Nothing.

  One curtain. Then another. He moved to the second window. First curtain, nothing. A feeling of huge relief began to spread through his body. He stepped to the last curtain. Touched it with the tip of the tongs. Nothing. He leant forward and lifted it–and there it was. Shining. Black. Lying across the floor. He gave a cry and fell backwards against the sofa, covering himself with the pillow, hiding his head as a child might, waiting for the vicious hiss of escaping steam and the burning needles as the fangs entered his body. But there was nothing. He moved the pillow, scrambling back on the sofa and dropping behind it. No movement. He looked over the sofa. It was still there. Dead. Inert. And then he saw what he had not seen in his terror. It was too thin. He looked closely and discovered that it was the television aerial cable coming in from the window. He bent his head and felt a sob of relief rise into his throat. It was some moments before he raised himself and turned to the door. “There’s nothing here,” he said.

  He did not hear the others come into the room until the door clicked shut. Then he was aware that the two chandeliers went out and one of the floor lamps near the fireplace was switched on and a cushion cover placed over the shade, giving the dimmest of lights. Only then did Jacmel open the curtains. Howard stood by the sofa hearing his heart hammering and feeling the sliminess of the sweat that had built up in his groin.

  “Are you all right, Dick?”

  The voice was a whisper and Howard pushed himself away from the support of the sofa and took the small hand. “Yes.”

  “We’ll be all right, won’t we?”

  “Yes. As long as we do as they say.”

  Jacmel was at the window, hidden from the outside by the folds of the curtains.

  “What do you want us to do?” Howard said.

  “Sit.” He indicated the sofa. “Sit and be quiet.”

  When he turned away from his inspection of the road he said to Howard, “After that you wish a drink?”

  Howard had not been unaware of the basket of liquor on the antique games table. Gin. Whisky. Vodka. Punté Mes, Pernod, Dubonnet . . . the inside of his mouth gathered saliva as he yearned for something to quiet his raw nerves, but at the same time he was aware of the boy’s stare.

  “I need one,” Dave said and his voice cut Howard like a razor. It had a sharp edge to it, brittle and fine, and Howard turned and saw him standing in the middle of the floor, his knees slightly bent, his arms drawn up almost as though he were about to spring. Howard registered an aura as familiar as an old friend: fear. Dave was as fearful as he, perhaps even more so. He saw the pasty, chalk-white face, the body tensed and the eyes that flitted constantly round the room, probing, seeking. He’s not sure, Howard thought; he’s terrified it might still be here. And he tucked away the knowledge as a prisoner might hide a weapon.

  Jacmel was still looking at Howard. “You can have something,” he said.

  “I’ve got a thirst like a horse,” Dave said loudly and began to move towards the table which held the liquor. He did so slowly, testing each footstep as someone might who crosses a bog.

  “What?” Jacmel said, still looking at Howard.

  “Mine’s Scotch,” Dave said again loudly and Howard recognized the bravado. It was like someone talking to himself in a dark room.

  Slowly Howard shook his head and the effort of will brought out the sweat on him again. He loosened his tie. “It’s a jour sans,” he said.

  Jacmel looked at him oddly, and shrugged. Dave was at the table pouring himself a whisky.

  “That is too much,” Jacmel said, seeing the half-filled tumbler.

  “I can take it.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Believe me.”

  “It is too much,” Jacmel said again and he took the glass and tried to pour some of the whisky back into the bottle. “For Christ’s sake!” Dave said and made a grab for the glass. The whisky slopped on to the table leaving a small measure behind and this Jacmel handed back to him.

  “That is enough,” he said.

  They stared at each other, hostile, natural enemies, yet brought together by circumstances into an unnatural alliance.

  “Watch the window,” Jacmel said. He poured himself a shot of vodka and threw it into the back of his throat.

  After a moment Dave said, “What do we do now?”

  “We wait.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “We wait. We have the boy. No one will shoot the boy. We are not in South America.”

  They waited. Time in that quiet room seemed to come to a halt: Dave at the window; Howard and the boy on the sofa; Jacmel pacing the floor, sometimes at the window, sometimes at the far side of the room, sometimes in Howard’s vision, sometimes behind him. There was danger all around but in a sense they were on an island of safety within the danger. The snake was not in this room.

  Abruptly Jacmel came to a stop in front of Howard. “Why do you say a mamba?” he said.

  “Oh, Jesus–” Dave began.

  “Why?”

  Because I know, Howard thought, because I have seen it happen before.

  “They are few, no?”

  In Eaton Square, Howard thought, but not in Africa; there, if you used the bush as he had, they were never far from your thoughts. You tended to discount other snakes, you knew they’d move away, afraid of you. But you could never tell with a mamba. “No,” he said. “They’re not rare. You find them all over east and south-east Africa.”

  “They are very bad,” Jacmel said. It was half-statement, half rhetorical question.

  “Very bad,” Howard said. “You saw what happened to Louise.”

  “Jesus, can’t you belt up!” Dave said from the window.

  In his mind’s eye Howard saw Harry Marshall, joking and smiling, thinking they’d got rid of the poison, and all the time he was dying. “It happened to a friend of mine,” he said, and watched Dave under his eyelids.

  Jacmel, who had walked to the window, now turned and came back. “The same that happened to Louise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you stop bloody talking about it?” Dave said.

  “Where was this?” Jacmel said.

  “Zambesi Valley.”

  “When?”

  “Some years after the war.”

  Howard was aware that Dave had turned completely away as though trying not to hear and had begun to whistle softly through his teeth.

  “With a mamba?”

  He was forcing Jacmel to drag the details from him.

  “Black mamba. About th
e same size as this one. You said it was more than two metres, didn’t you?”

  “Nearly three,” Philip said.

  Howard did not want to look at Philip in case what he saw made him stop. It was a choice between what might happen to Philip and what might happen to Dave and he chose the latter.

  “What happened?” Jacmel said.

  “Why are we talking about this?” Dave said. “What the hell’s the matter? Talk. Talk. Talk.”

  “What?” Jacmel repeated.

  “I was a District Officer,” Howard said. “Place called Chirundu.” He felt Philip’s fingers tighten on his hand and remembered that Chirundu was where the incident with the lion and the terrier had occurred. “It was Christmas,” he said and the memories came crowding back; heat, loneliness, heat; a tin of Crosse & Blackwell’s Christmas pudding, which he had been saving and a box of crackers he’d bought on his last leave in Salisbury; a razor from his mother; a pipe he had bought himself, socks, hankies, the usual things. And just like a kid he had wanted to open the parcels when they arrived but he knew that if he did Christmas Day would be a disaster; he knew he’d get drunk at ten in the morning and stay that way until Boxing Day wiped out the feeling of loneliness. So he’d got one of his servants to cut a tree and he’d put it in the living-room of the small house in the middle of the boma and he had got out the presents and hung them amidst the broad, shiny, unChristmassy leaves. But even as he did so he knew that the holiday was only going to be possible if he had enough whisky inside him. It was his first Christmas alone in the bush and he was dreading it.

  And then, on Christmas Eve, Harry Marshall had come marching in from the neighbouring administrative post nearly fifty miles away. He had half a dozen bearers with him and they were carrying all kinds of things, wine, cake, nuts, a tinned ham, tinned butter, even brandy. “God Jul,” Harry had said as he marched into the boma. “I’ve come to keep the feast with you.”